This week, Good American takes New York.
It has been 10 years, almost to the day, since pop-culture icon Khloé Kardashian and then-budding brand mogul Emma Grede introduced their disruptive denim-first fashion brand, Good American, designed to fit and flatter women in sizes 00 to 24. Working with launch partner Nordstrom, they made merchandising a differentiator, displaying the full size run of each style on the same rack rather than separating out the “plus sizes,” as was customary at the time. The brand famously did $1 million in sales on its launch day.
Now, as it embarks on its next decade, Good American is preparing for another reveal that could prove similarly impactful. On Thursday, the brand will open the doors to its first-ever physical, independent presence in New York City in the form of a SoHo pop-up running through Sunday.
Showcasing the now-mature brand in all its glory is a big goal for the store, Grede told Glossy two weeks before. Good American now includes “a full wardrobe,” spanning product categories far beyond denim, with the assortment recently fine-tuned following a period of rapid growth. Grede said the company recently spent 18 months evaluating its evolution, ensuring cohesion across categories, and weighing which products make sense given its lifecycle and customers’ behavior.
“You can imagine that when you’ve been in business for 10 years, you try lots of things,” she said.
Remaining focused while ensuring ongoing growth is now the name of the game.
“Your values are always your values,” Grede said. “Everything should change in the business except the reason you started it in the very first place. So, we’re always building on, and staying true to, the reason we started, while evolving the company in an exciting way that lets us reach new customers, younger customers.”
Good American recently wrapped up a college tour featuring café takeovers and exclusive merch, stopping at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin. The idea was to introduce the brand to 22-year-olds who were 12 when the brand debuted, Grede said, adding the brand’s current customers span 14-year-olds, who discover it while shopping with their mothers, to women in their 70s.
As for the NYC pop-up, Grede suggested the brand also intends to elevate Good American’s positioning, noting NYC’s importance as a fashion market and the in-store inclusion of “real suede” pieces, for example. The brand’s e-commerce site is currently selling leather pants and suede jackets for $498 alongside its under-$200 denim styles.
And, Grede said, the opportunity to let more customers experience the brand’s fit and quality while gathering first-hand feedback is invaluable.
In addition to Good American’s fall and holiday collections, the space will offer an exclusive apple pie-flavored frozen coffee by L.A.-based Leora café — also making its NYC debut — as well as a Dotcakes activation, a meet-and-greet with Grede, Polaroid portraits by local Happy Beginnings Studio and “cozy” gifts with purchase. New York signatures and Americana-inspired details will be featured throughout, building on the brand’s “The Good American Dream” fall campaign featuring model Taylor Hill.
Despite the nods to New York City, Grede stressed that the store will “feel like the brand,” bringing a bit of Good American’s “L.A. world” to SoHo.
To date, Good American’s differentiators have served it well. Its 2026 sales are up 30% year over year, exceeding its goal, Grede said. A company spokesperson declined to share 2025 revenue but confirmed that, in 2022, it reached $200 million in annual sales, as widely reported.
“We’re coming into Q4 with very strong momentum,” Grede said. “And the pop-up just gives us a good opportunity to build on it during what is an important shopping season for our customers.”
Ten years in, on top of tried-and-true denim and a direct Kardashian affiliation, Good American now has Grede’s star power working to its advantage. Since 2016, Grede’s notoriety has grown through several projects spotlighting her business and leadership savvy. There’s her Aspire podcast, featuring conversations with fellow successful and inspiring people, launched on the Audacy network in May 2025; her New York Times best-selling book “Start With Yourself,” meant to present an overall “new vision for work and life”; and her “A Seat at the Table” recurring dinner series convening big-name women in business — the latest iteration, welcoming Shay Mitchell, Anna Bing and Rachel Zoe, among many others, was covered by Vogue.
“There’s definitely a natural connection between the people who follow me and the Good American customer,” Grede said. “When I talk about style or fit or business or what women want from their clothes, so much of that is reflected in the work I do at Good American. … But I always want the relationship with the brand to be about the product. That’s what creates a lasting customer and real loyalty; people are loyal to the fit over everything.”
Good American currently has four permanent stores, in Las Vegas, Newport Beach, Canoga Park and Atlanta. A spokesperson said the brand plans to expand its retail footprint in 2027, though declined to share specifics, and that retail expansion remains a key priority as it continues to grow.
For her part, Grede said she’d love to open a store in NYC someday, adding that the brand is “completely focused on New York, at the moment.”
Despite Good American’s current focus on direct-to-consumer sales, Grede talked up the brand’s global wholesale business and called OG partner Nordstrom “as important as ever.”
“From the outset, the reason I launched both in DTC and with Nordstrom as a partner is that I always knew this business would need to exist in all channels,” Grede said. “We’d need to have wholesale, and we’d need to have retail, and we would need to go direct. And at the end of the day, when you have a brand that is all about giving choice to your customers, you want to meet them where they are.”
